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Monday, 5 January 2009

World's Happinest Places

The Netherlands' Erasmus University is home to the World Database of Happiness. Its director, Ruut Veenhoven, has made his life's work researching what makes people happy. Inspired by these rankings, a former correspondent for National Public Radio and self-proclaimed grouch, Eric Weiner, decided to visit and chronicle the happiest, and saddest, places on earth, leading to his book, The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World.

He doesn't visit them all, though, so we've taken results directly from Veenhoven's data for the 13 happiest countries out of 95 surveyed. Happiness level is based on polls of citizens, with a 10 indicating perfect bliss.

01 - Denmark Happiness level: 8.2Population: 5,475,791Gross domestic product per capita: $37,000Happy fact: Denmark boats a happy workforce. The unemployment rate in December 2007 was only 2.7%. Some 75% of the labor force are members of a trade union.

02 - SwitzerlandHappiness level: 8.1Population: 7,591,400GDP per capita: $38,706Happy fact: The Swiss are efficient and punctual, comparatively wealthy and face hardly any unemployment. Their streets, air and tap water are squeaky clean. Chocolate is a national obsession. But Weiner saw no joy in their faces, and reasoned that perhaps it's better to live in this middle range than to constantly swing between great highs and terrible lows. Swiss happiness, he writes, is "more than mere contentment but less than full-on joy."

03 - AustriaHappiness level: 8.0Population: 8,316,487GDP per capita: $36,000Happy fact: Nearly 80% of Austria's total energy consumption comes from renewable sources like hydropower, as well as wind, solar and biomass power plants. Vienna is also home to one of the world's great operas - the Vienna State Opera, and there's always the Sachertorte, a delectable chocolate confection. Truly, the hills are alive with the sound of music.

04 - IcelandHappiness level: 7.8Population: 316,252GDP per capita: $40,277Happy fact: Because the country is dark and cold, Weiner was initially skeptical about Iceland's ranking as the fourth-happiest nation in the world (after Denmark, Switzerland and Austria). But the nation is a family - geneticists have actually found that all citizens are related. Certain phrases in the Icelandic language, Weiner writes, are even more telling. When people greet each other, the phrase they use roughly translates to "come happy," and when people part, they utter the equivalent of "go happy." The country is a favorite stamping ground of artists and cultivates a creative spirit. Indeed, the government supports writers with generous subsidies.

05 - FinlandHappiness level: 7.7Population: 5,307,578GDP per capita: $34,819Happy fact: Finland is the freest nation in the world when it comes to civil liberties, freedom of the press, low corruption levels and high levels of political rights, according to its World Audit Democracy profile. And over 75% of citizens' health care costs are funded by public entities. Traffic ticket fines are based on your ability to pay. One 27-year-old Finnish Internet entrepreneur, pulled over in his BMW doing 43 miles an hour in a 25-mph zone, was slapped with a $71,400 fine. A 26-year-old grad student paid $82 for a similar offense. He was happier.

06 - AustraliaHappiness level: 7.7Population: 21,260,000GDP per capita: $34,359Happy fact: In 2006, a pair of economists ranked Australia second, after Iceland, in a new kind of happiness ranking. Using the U.N. Human Development Index, which measures life expectancy, education and GDP, the researchers found that Australians were happier than citizens of other nations even though they tended to work long hours and enjoyed less job security.

08 - CanadaHappiness level: 7.6Population: 33,244,000GDP per capita: $38,200Happy fact: In 2006, a group of social psychologists at England's University of Leicester created a map of the world's happiest nations based on compiled data from more than 100 studies that surveyed 80,000 people. According to their ranking, Canada's score was largely due to its citizens' health, wealth and access to education.

09 - Guatemala Happiness level: 7.6Population: 13,000,000GDP per capita: $4,155Happy fact: The old mantra must be true: Money can't buy happiness. While Guatemala's GDP per capita may be paltry compared with, say, Denmark's ($37,000), the Central American nation is topping the happiness charts right along with its economically better-off counterparts.

10 - LuxembourgHappiness level: 7.6Population: 480,222GDP per capita: $81,511Happy fact: Luxembourg's economy is stable and high-performing, boasting low inflation and low unemployment. In 2006, the nation possessed the highest GDP per capita in the world. Though the country is small, its citizens are fiercely proud of their heritage and retain folk traditions that are vestiges of its rural past.

11 - IrelandHappiness level: 7.6Population: 4,339,000GDP per capita: $43,600Happy fact: Whoever said sunnier places were happier has never been to Ireland. Even though some parts of Ireland see 275 days of rain per year, temperatures rarely drop below freezing, even in the winter. And in 2005, Ireland topped a quality-of-life index compiled by The Economist based on nine criteria that ranged from health to gender equality to political freedom.

12 - MexicoHappiness level: 7.6Population: 108,700,891GDP per capita: $11,249Happy fact: The most populous Spanish-speaking country in the world, Mexico is a land of natural beauty and scientific import. It contains 200,000 species, or 10% to 12% of the world's biodiversity.

13 - NorwayHappiness level: 7.6Population: 4,752,735GDP per capita: $55,600Happy fact: Norway is rife with natural resources, including petroleum, hydropower, fish, forests and minerals. One reason the standard of living is so high is that those resources are vast compared with the size of the population. From 2001 to 2006, the Scandinavian nation also topped the U.N. Human Development Index, which is based on literacy rate, education level and per-capita income.